Sir Edmund Hillary died today. He was 88 and died of heart failure at the Auckland City Hospital. The reason you will have heard of him is that in 1953 he and Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

I have never had a desire to climb mountains. In fact when we were in Zermatt last year we wandered around the village graveyard looking at the graves of all those who had failed to conquer the Matterhorn and paid the ultimate price. I looked at the names and the birth and death dates of these young men and wondered what on earth possessed them to give up what was probably a very bright future to get to the top of a mountain. I suppose it’s some desire to do something that you will be remembered for. But wouldn’t it just be easier to write a book or become a golfer?

But some of the greatest acts of bravery have come from expeditions. The British have a long and illustrious history of exploring. The Antarctic explorer Captain Lawrence Oates, weakened by frostbite, walked into a blizzard knowing it meant certain death so as to increase the chances of survival for the remaining men. His last words are among the most famous quotations ever. “I am just going outside and may be some time,” he said as he left the hut.

“Those were the days when men were proper blokes,” said Rupert as we watched a programme about an expedition to the north pole in the 1960s the other evening.

It is true it seems a more romantic time, when men were driven to daring deeds and to discover the world you actually had to go there instead of just googling it. Having said that Hillary may have been undaunted by Everest, but when it came to proposing to his wife he was too shy and so asked his future mother-in-law to do it.

Hillary’s wife and daughter were tragically killed in a plane crash in 1975. But his son Peter climbed Everest in 2003, along with the Tenzing’s son, Jamling Tenzing Norgay, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Hillary’s ascent.

So maybe we are still up to daring deeds, we just need the right inspiration.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

The New Year is traditionally a time for looking forward. But thanks to some old school reports from Shaw House Grammar School for Girls I found at my mother’s house, I have been looking back, all the way back to my teens…..

My English report does not bode well for my writing future. This one is from 1977. Achievement C+ Effort B. Helena is a bright and active member of this group, into which she has settled well. Her written work does not live up to the general impression she otherwise makes.

Rupert says that’s before I had him as an editor.

By 1978 things have improved slightly. Achievement A (no mark for effort). Helena shows a lively interest in English. She takes an active part in class work and enjoys discussion, reading and acting. Her written work is imaginative and mature.

The headmistress’s comment from 1977 perhaps has more in common with the present than I will admit.

Although Helena is a very mature girl in many ways, she is inclined to fuss and bother over minor matters. She seems to want to organise everyone about her, but I think she will soon find that other people are not always willing to be organised! If Helena would concern herself a little more with Helena alone, I am sure things would improve!

I don’t like people who end critical little sentences with punctuation marks. It’s almost as if they don’t really mean what they’re saying. Or they’re too scared to really stand behind what they’re saying.

When I read that out to Rupert he said it sounded like an exact description of Olivia and me. So the past is always part of the future.

Happy New/Old Year.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

So I discovered the happy medium the night before last. Two glasses of good champagne and one glass of wine. So pleased was I with my discovery that I drank rather more last night and now remember why I hate drinking. I spent the moderate night with my friend Floss. Back in the days when we all hung out in the King’s Road in our late teens she and I were best friends. We would go everywhere together. In those days this mainly involved going to nightclubs. There were a few other girls in our gang but it was depressing to hear from Floss what has happened to them. One of our close friends was a girl I was always rather jealous of. She had everything I longed for. She was at public School, her parents had a big mansion in Chelsea. She was beautiful; a buxom, raven-haired, startlingly pretty girl with lovely skin. Her sister was a very successful model until she became a drug addict. The sister died of an overdose when I was at university. Floss told me the other night that our old friend was a heroin and crack addict. Another friend of ours called Claire died a couple of years ago of alcoholism. Floss herself has been in recovery for sixteen years and now helps other drug addicts. Two other friends, Billie and Ben, are still drug addicts and Floss doesn’t even know if they’re still alive. These were all rich, beautiful, well-educated kids. Maybe it was the fact that I didn’t have everything they had and so was forced to get myself to university and get a job that saved me. Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

A man in London last week was arrested for trying to have sex with a fence. This wasn’t just any fence, it was in Leicester Square Gardens. I know the fence, and very attractive it is too.

Apparently Daniel French, aged 24, told police “I’m going to have sex with that fence.” “Oh no you’re not,” said the police and dragged him off.

The week before a “cycle-sexualist” (what quango came up with that ridiculous phrase) was caught half-naked in a compromising position with a bicycle in Scotland.

What I want to know is this: whatever happened to a good old-fashioned hooker? My mother has just moved to Italy and she lives in the middle of nowhere. “If you get lost,” she tells visitors, “ask the villagers for la puttana, I live just above the whore.”

My mother tells me the hooker arrives in her “office” just before 7am, parks up and stays all day. “She doesn’t even take time off for lunch, which I think is when she’s busiest.”

I imagine in my mother’s village fences and bicycles and other inanimate objects can sleep safely at night….

Stefania Prestigiacomo, minister for Equal opportunities in the Italian government, has come up with ten commandments for female happiness:

* Consider motherhood a value – it is the greatest experience for women
* Follow your childhood dream
* Keep falling in love
* Buy something useless every once in a while
* Take pride in your own beauty
* Do not be upset by your man if he doesn’t notice when you’ve been to the hairdresser – it is his loss
* Do not be envious of important people; they, too, often spend evenings just watching television
* Travel to broaden your mind
* Defend other women
* Smile

I don’t agree with all of them. Number seven for example. Since when did I ever envy anyone who has to go out every night? My idea of a good evening is the apero a grande vitesse, followed by dinner with my husband and children and bed with a good book by 9.30pm. Or watching Grey’s Anatomy.

Number nine is slightly dodgy too - defending other women is just not in our genetic make-up. As a friend of mine said yesterday when we were discussing what makes us happy “nothing makes me more miserable than seeing other women happy.” In France, at least, sisterhood is dead and buried.

And what about men? Their list is a lot shorter, as I saw at lunch yesterday with Leo and his friend Louis, both aged four.

“Mine’s bigger than yours,” said Leo, holding up a piece of emmental to compare with his friend’s bit of emmental.

“No,” protested Louis. “Mine’s much bigger.”

It starts early…….

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

I see today that yet another “top” banker is about to resign or be pushed following record losses for the bank he runs. Citigroup chairman Chuck Prince has earned £27 million during his last four years at the bank, where he has presided over losses of £3.3 billion and a 57% slide in profits.

He joins former Merrill Lynch boss, Stan O’Neal, who last week was asked to leave but given a £181 million golden goodbye. In common with Prince, O’Neal was responsible for record losses at his bank. A staggering $2.3 billion during just one quarter, and a total of $8.4 billion. For working so hard, O’Neal earned $48 million in 2006. Yet when he announced he was leaving the bank’s share price actually went up.

So let’s imagine you’re working at a nursery and you lose 57% of the children in your care. Do you think you would be sent home, told you have been very silly and given some more children to take home with you? Or you sell cars for a living but decide to give away half the cars in your forecourt to random passers-by?

These men are over-paid failures who have lost millions for their banks. But no one blames them for it. Why is this?

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

Oh for goodness sake. Where will this all end? Halle Berry has had to issue a groveling apology because when she was shown a distorted image of herself where her nose was over-sized she exclaimed “I look like my Jewish cousin.”

“She must be punished,” says one reader in reaction to the article about the incident on the Daily Mail website. Oh please.

I am half-Swedish and half-Italian. Almost every time I tell people this they say (with an air of unconcealed disappointment) “oh, you don’t look very Swedish.” It is true, I don’t look remotely Swedish. As my Italian father pointed out when he first saw me after 12 years: “You’ve ended up with my looks and your mother’s brain; a most unfortunate way for things to turn out.”

But do I get offended if someone tells me I look Italian? I have brown eyes and brown hair. That is the Italian look. And no, it really doesn’t bother me if people point out that I look like an Italian as opposed to a Swede. It is true, just as it is true that a lot of people of Jewish descent have big noses. When did you ever see an actor playing Shylock with a small one? What is wrong with people? What is there to get offended about here? Why is having a big nose such a bad thing?

I despair at the political correctness we are forced to live with. It makes the world a really boring place where people are too frightened to speak for fear of upsetting someone. Halle Berry made a joke. But even she knew she would be in trouble so got the TV station to edit the word Jewish out of her sentence. Still news spread that she said it and everyone went crazy. How did we get so po-faced?

I’m with Peter from London, who also left a comment on the website. “Get over it. Nobody died.”

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

“Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds; and until we know what has been or will be the peculiar combination of outward with inward facts, which constitute a man’s critical actions, it will be better not to think ourselves wise about his character.”

To many, George Eliot’s words will have a particular resonance as we watch the McCann drama unfold. I am glad to see so many comments on the previous blog, but I will not be swayed. I stick to my original conclusions; to quote the waitress in Thelma & Louise when asked who she thinks shot the man in the parking lot “neither of those two was the murdering kind”.

Of course I have no evidence. All I have is my own belief that I am a good enough judge of character and events to recognise a huge miscarriage of justice when I see it. If I believe that Kate and Gerry McCann murdered Maddy I may as well give up. If they are guilty then the world is a far worse place than I imagined.

I am happy to see them back home and hope that they will find some comfort in returning, albeit without their little girl. I can’t imagine what they will feel when they walk into her bedroom. But I am glad to see this latest debacle seems only to have made them stronger and brought them closer together as a family. Yet more evidence of their good character.

On a lighter note, here is a comment from Leonardo yesterday to his father as he got in the car.

“I love this car,” he said. “I love you daddy. I love Granny. I love everyone.”

What a splendid character he is.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

Olivia and I have been listening to a CD of African music. One of the songs begins with a quote from Nelson Mandela. “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if it needs be it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die,” he says.
Yesterday was the unveiling of a statue of the great man himself in London’s Parliament Square. I was thrilled to be able to show him to Olivia, who has found the concept of dying for an ideal a little hard to understand, as well as the 27 years he spent in prison. “27 years?” she exclaimed. “That’s more than my life. No, that’s much older than me. I wouldn’t want that thank you very much.”

What struck me as I watched the news coverage of Nelson and other “dignitaries” including Gordon Brown and Red Ken was just how dignified he is and how undignified they are. This is a man who really was willing to die for his principles and who sacrificed 27 years of his life in prison for them. And it shows in his face and comportment. I can’t imagine our politicians today sacrificing a weekend for much, although Gordon Brown did very generously cut short his summer holiday in Dorset this year to deal with a national security alert. I suspect he was secretly relieved to get out of the rain and back to town.

I am on my way to London now and hope to see the new statue. Maybe it will inspire future generations of politicians as they walk past it. Let’s hope so, we need more Nelsons.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

Last night at dinner Olivia asked Leo and Bea how many children they were going to have.

“Three,” said Bea. “Called Manon, Rupert and Helena.”

“What if you have three boys?” asked Olivia

“Doesn’t matter,” said Bea.

Leo rather worryingly announced he was going to have 34 “childrens” as he calls them. The questions then progressed to a quiz which proved a fascinating insight into their little minds. Olivia, of course, was quiz-master.

Olivia: Leo Wright, is it better to be Spiderman or to have a Ferrari?

Leo: To have a Ferrari.

Olivia: Right answer! Now, what is the nicest animal in the world?

Leo: Horses.

Olivia: Wrong answer! Bea?

Bea: Sheeps.

Olivia: That’s the right answer! Now, what is the best thing for you that you can eat?

Leo: Apples.

Olivia: Wrong answer. Bea?

Bea: Is it drinking?

Olivia: No, it’s fruit. Now Leo, what is the best country in the world?

Leo: Is this the London question? I want the London question. (The London question is what is the capital of England).

Olivia: I want gets nothing.

Bea: Italy?

Olivia: Wrong!

Me: Is the answer England?

Olivia: No, there is one that is a little bit better, it’s Sweden because you have POP and Hennes. (Both clothes shops, there’s nothing superficial about my children). Now what is the word we should be saying the whole time?

Leo: Ketchup.

Olivia: Wrong! Bea?

Bea: Please and thank you.

Olivia: Is the correct answer. Well done Bea, you won!

So there we have it. The right answer is to live in Sweden, surrounded by sheep(s), eat fruit, say please and thank you and drive a Ferrari.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007